Digital video broadcasting over satellite (DVB-S): a system for broadcasting and contribution applications

The general system concepts for digital television transmission and broadcasting by satellite, developed within the European digital video broadcasting (DVB) Project and standardized by ETSI are described. The system (EN 300 421) is designed to provide direct-to-home (DTH) multi-programme TV services in the BSS and FSS bands and is addressed to consumer integrated receiver decoders (IRDs), as well as collective antenna systems (SMATV) and cable television head-end stations, with a likelihood of remodulation. The system operational modes have been extended in 1998 (EN 301 210) to cover also 'contribution' applications by satellite, such as conveying vision and sound material between TV studios, or from remote locations directly to the broadcaster's premises through light and portable up-link terminal digital satellite news gathering (DSNG). The exploitation of the multiplex flexibility allows the use of the transmission capacity for a variety of TV service configurations. The use of flexible and advanced error protection techniques, based on the concatenation of Reed-Solomon and convolutional codes (with Viterbi decoding), allows optimum adaptation to different satellite transponder characteristics. i.e. bandwidth acid power. providing high service quality and availability with small receiving antennas (DTH applications) or transmitting terminals (DSNG applications). Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.